This market high stands on thin air

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a collateralized debt obligation of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here.  We're looking for your feedback to help improve this newsletter. Please follow this link to our survey, which will take only a few minutes. Today's Agenda The market's new record has a shaky foundation.  Trump's removal isn't as unlikely as you may think.  Trump can't expect much of a bounce from the death of al-Baghdadi. LVMH may have to pay up for Tiffany. Or not. Stocks Climb to Shaky Highs In mountain climbing, if you go too high, too fast, without giving your body a solid base of acclimation, you end up feeling pretty awful. The same can apply to stock markets. U.S. stock indexes climbed to new records today, propelled by positive headlines of varying degrees of dubiousness. President Donald Trump said a trade deal with China is close, but how many times have markets bought that line, only to be disappointed shortly after? Corporate earnings are beating expectations, but don't they always? And profit forecasts are falling. Brexit will be delayed until Jan. 31, but that's just preventing a Halloween Brexit disaster. Uncertainty still abounds. And looking beneath the hood of the S&P 500 shows just five companies — not 50, not 500 — account for much of this year's gain, writes Robert Burgess. This exposes a lack of breadth to the market's charge and suggests it's more likely to succumb to altitude sickness. One big motivator for stocks is a hope the Federal Reserve will lower borrowing costs again at its policy meeting this week. A rate cut may not be strictly necessary, writes Bill Dudley, but the risks of a mistake are too high for inaction. Tim Duy argues the Fed should cool it after that and instead lay out conditions for future cuts. We'll see if that will be enough oxygen to keep stocks climbing. Further Markets Reading: Jim Simons didn't beat the market, but he did figure out the magic formula for making himself and his partners wildly wealthy. — Barry Ritholtz  Impeachment Analyst Ratings Buy: More Surprises Trump couldn't have expected a uniformly warm reception at the Washington Nationals' World Series game yesterday. But the sheer volume of booing, the chants of "Lock him up!" and the "Impeach Trump" banner in the stands may have surprised him. It's kind of a metaphor for the whole impeachment saga, which has unfolded rapidly in little more than a month, overwhelming Trump's ability to control the narrative. And the surprises may keep coming right up until the very end, writes Tyler Cowen: Nobody currently expects the Senate to convict and remove Trump, but game theory suggests it's not as unlikely as Trump may assume. Sell: Absolute Immunity Trump's defense so far has consisted mainly of stonewalling and distraction. On the former front, he has forbidden White House staffers from talking to Congress. Not all have obeyed, but today former John Bolton aide Charles Kupperman sort of did, asking a court to tell him if he should heed a subpoena. The basis for this challenge to congressional authority, the claim of "absolute immunity" from investigation, is shaky, writes Noah Feldman.  Hold: Whistle-blower Anonymity As for the distraction part, Trump and his allies keep complaining about process, including the fact that the original whistle-blower in the Ukraine scandal is still anonymous. But his identity is unnecessary to bolster his complaint; other evidence has done that by now, writes Andrew Rosenthal. Media and the government both have an interest in protecting whistle-blower identities. Further Trump Troubles Reading: Baseball fans shouldn't have chanted "lock him up." Yes, it's worse when Trump does it, but if opponents value the rule of law, then they must criticize him on those terms. — Jonathan Bernstein  The Death of Al-Baghdadi Trump might have thought he'd earned some baseball-fan love with the announcement earlier that special forces had killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. History suggests he may get a polling bump from the killing, but it will likely be small and short-lived, writes Jonathan Bernstein. In fact, Trump wasted no time making the killing a partisan thing, possibly exaggerating details and exposing military secrets. That tends to dim the glory of the moment. Trump also probably made killing Baghdadi more difficult with his precipitous pullout from Syria, burning Kurdish intelligence sources. That makes the people who carried out the mission even more praiseworthy. Those include the Kurds, who kept helping Americans kill Baghdadi even after Trump betrayed them, writes Eli Lake.  Unfortunately, killing Baghdadi won't end ISIS and could even make it more dangerous, at least in the short term, warns James Stavridis. Killing al-Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006, for example, helped spawn ISIS in the first place. LVMH Goes Jewelry Shopping The extremely multi-named luxury conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE is trying to get even more conglomerate-y by bidding $14.5 billion for American jeweler Tiffany & Co. That is quite a lot of money, but maybe not enough to sway Tiffany's board and shareholders, writes Chris Hughes. A higher price will raise the risks, but LVMH Et Cetera may feel walking away is riskier. Then again, with a recession looming, there's still a good chance Tiffany will come cheaper after a little wait, suggests Sarah Halzack.  Telltale Charts If WeWork needs more cash, then SoftBank may struggle to provide it, writes Shuli Ren. It's not a bottomless well of money.  Changing demographics mean India isn't the buyer of last resort for gold any more, writes David Fickling. Despite large and growing demand for them, green bonds don't carry much of a premium, notes Mark Gilbert. That could be an opportunity.  Further Reading Nationalizing the credit-reporting industry, as Bernie Sanders proposes, won't fix its problems. — Bloomberg's editorial board  California wildfires and blackouts show we aren't confronting climate change seriously. — Tyler Cowen  AT&T Inc. has mollified Elliott Management, but the real test comes with its unveiling of HBO Max tomorrow. — Tara Lachapelle  It's time to let Bernie Ebbers out of prison. His long sentence has already served its purpose. — Joe Nocera  Face it, middle class: Your taxes will have to go up. — Michael Strain  A wealth tax could make people happier, without making rich people more miserable. — Stephen Mihm  Air pollution has risen sharply under Trump, and that's no coincidence. — Cass Sunstein  Why bowling is back. — Justin Fox  ICYMI Wildfires raged across California. Americans aren't tapping their home equity. Popeyes set a date for its chicken-sandwich return. Kickers Snorkeling grandmothers expose a venomous sea snake infestation.  Scientists find a trove of early mammal fossils. (h/t Scott Kominers for the first two kickers)  Scientists may have found humanity's homeland. Kanye's new album isn't great. But it's not terrible. Note: Please send chicken sandwiches and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. 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